


After the Thaw

by Santsi



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: 2 character pov, A/U, F/M, Post-Naraku, Winter, two part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 14:29:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9127780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Santsi/pseuds/Santsi
Summary: The end of them changed her, but the seasons keep her.Inuyasha and Sango at the end of all things.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ayrith (freijya)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/freijya/gifts).



> Forgive spelling/grammar. This was done on my phone, since I have no computer. I did the best I could. For Ayrith, inspired by her and every lovely story I'll always go back to.

Its days like this Sango leaves her door open.

She peels back the thick hide and braces her face to the cool morning mist. It's there in the canopy of the trees, she sees the catch of Inuyasha's eyes, golden like the wildflowers dotting the valley, like the sun that still rises.

"I see you there, you know." She says, tying the hide to the soggy boarding of her keep. Sango steps into the single streak of sunlight. It isnt yet past dawn, just streaks of light falling through the trees, glittering with daybreak.

In a flash of red Inuyasha stands before her, four hares in hand. Sango is up right, hands on her hips when she eyes them, then Inuyasha. "Come in." 

Her hut is modest, but nothing less than Inuyasha expected. Sango's hands were forged from work and war, and Naraku's death had not softened them. Neither had Miroku's or Kagome's. Neither had Shippou's, Kirara's.

That had been a hard year. Only a blip, Inuyasha knew, in the quasi-immortal life his blood cursed him with. But for Sango, their journey together had only been the eye of the storm that would define her womanhood. Sango had flowered and lost and bled many times, through many moons, and had hoped her way through all of it.

 

.

 

She still hopes now. She built her home in a valley surrounded by high snow covered peaks, mirrored by the lake below. Too many hurts drove her away from a vacant hut in Kaede's village, with an embrace and a care package, she wandered on. As a girl, the girl that still had a mother and father, she fancied the mountains and snows, the deep valleys, yellow trees, and grazing animals. She had never seen them in person, only in paintings brought by travelers to trade for shelter and a skin of sake. It was then she decided she would forge out her own peace. She feels her family in the mountains. She feels Miroku in the calm waters that sustain her with life giving fish. She feels Kagome in the walls around her while she sleeps. She feels Kirara in the southern winds. She feels Shippou in the fires that keep her warm in the grips of winter.

 

Each and every face that built her up into something strong and whole, she feels them in the thaw of the spring.

Inuyasha and Sango arent much for words. She thinks this is the dynamic that keeps them. Holds them together, so that they may grieve and not grieve and go on. 

Its been several winters since Sango made a home in this valley, several hard, long winters. The first winter was unlike anything she'd seen; the snows were high as a man stands, and her thatch roof fell through. She remembers how the many layers of fur she wore couldn't keep the cold from her bones, how the stars were clearer than she'd ever seen them, how that reminded her of Kagome, and the heart it took to carry on.

 

.

 

Every winter brought new and unexpected setbacks. Her village had not been in the highlands. The winters there had been more than mild, but she had never seen half as much snow as she had seen engulf her home. She would set traps and dig out paths, and thank the winter for keeping her busy. The youkai in the highlands were small, and hardly worth hiraitkotsu. It was her third winter, the night of her moon blood accompanied by vicious cramps, she went out in the night to find her traps bare and her belly hollow. When she made her way back home, Inuyasha was there, feeding a meager fire, "Fool," he said eyes half sad, " Your fire almost went out. What would you have done then? Everything is damp. You've got another damn hole in your roof! "

She was hurting, and bone cold, and she hadn't seen Inuyasha in atleast three years.

"What... are... you doing here?" The rage inside her boiled. He had been gone so long. Now he comes, now. When her womanhood weakens her; how dare he. And to scold her? It had been too long for that. But the warmth from the fire was welcome on her nearly frost bitten skin, so her words came out more desperate than she would have liked.

He stood from the fire, and walked to face her, so close she could feel his breath warming her cheeks. His arm reached passed her to close the youkai-skin doorway. A heart beat passed before he wrapped his arms around her. "You've done pretty well for a human, Sango. I'm... suprised. Even though some of your ideas have been pretty stupid. You should have just stayed with Kaede." The words came out, but he knew better.

She wrapped her arms around him then, though she felt more a puffer fish than a woman, with so many layers of fur. She lets go. "I have missed you, Inuyasha."

 

She breathed him in, and parted to lay beside the fire, "Ice fishing has proved more difficult than I anticipated, " she scoffed, talking more to herself than him. "I'm in no condition to go try again tonight, the traps are empty, the snows are heavy. And here you are." There was no reason to bring up the past. The present is all she has.

She eyes him from beneath her bangs. He is seated beside her. His profile is unchanged, straight nose, straight face, amber eyes slanted toward her, "Why did you choose this place, Sango?"

"Solitude, I suppose. These mountains, they heal me. There is forgiveness here. "

He stiffens, and she knows some things will never be completely gone, no matter how high the mountains reach.

"Why do you only come now? After so long?"

He eyes her for what feels like forever. The fire spits and crackles and smells like something that wasn't a dream. That was real and tangible, and taken so fast, all she could do was weep and wander on.

"Solitude, I suppose," he says, arms crossed, gaze set back on the flame. In that moment, she knows he feels them here, too.

"Why come now?" The question hangs in the air. In the flames she sees the red glow of his eyes and the slaughter that followed, her skill that saved herself, her heart that saved him.

"I've spent a long time on my own, Sango. Our journey was nothing more than a beat. I was meant to be alone," He regards her with something like respect. It makes her insides swell and turn. "I think you were meant to be alone, too."

 

The month her first flowering bloomed bright red on her sheets, she lost her entire family, with that she watched marriage and children dissolve before her. With womanhood came revenge in place of a husband, her comrades in place of a kitchen and children clinging at her calves. She knew this well. When all was lost, she wandered. She had no desire for domestication or men; as a woman, that was suicide, plain and clear. She knew her place was not with people.

 

"We are stray dogs, Inuyasha." She replies lightly, letting the warmth kiss her cheeks.

"Stray dogs, " He repeats, letting that epithet replace every spit and curse cast as a child, "Keh. Maybe so."

"It is true," Sango says sitting up. She peels off her furs layer by layer until she is in her underclothes. When she feels Inuyasha's eyes shamelessly on her, she knows the cold has taken him too. Winter means scraps of sewn together skins, her yukata in a box beside her bed. "There is nothing wrong with it, Inuyasha. I like it out here."

"You've always been one tough bitch. " He almost growls out, low, smirking, canine gleaming in the fire's light. She feels the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. "I brought some things."

There was a time when Inuyasha's stare would have bothered, even scared her, but there is little left of Sango, than the day's work and the pink of dawn. She has known Inuyasha long and well, and though her primative hackles rise, she does not draw back.

He pulls a large bag of rice and what seemed a pound of salted fish from a sack next to him. Her mouth fills with water the moment she sees it, her belly hollow for days, but Sango is her father's daughter, and her pride keeps her still.

He scowls, "Pfft. What, no thank you? I guess you want me to go get snow to melt too, princess. "

Always Inuyasha, the never changing brute.

"You don't need to do this. I am fine on my own."

Inuyasha turns on his haunches to face her, breath on her cheeks, "Listen Sango, its fucking cold out there, even for me. So I figured I might bring you some things. For some reason you chose this place, your traps are bare, and I can smell the blood from here. So can every other youkai within a hundred miles. I know you're strong. Just take it."

Her breath catches in her throat. His eyes are now, have always been, something that made her nervous and awe struck. She was used to the supernatural glow of a youkai's stare. Danger, her father warned her. Inuyasha, though, he is amber and warm. His face is sculpted into something she might have once called handsome, though that is every hanyou, perfect symmetry and alluring.  
It's taken her many years to wear down the wall in her mind her father built. What was once danger, is now the only living thing left of a life long gone. Her hand reaches out to his clawed one. "Thank you, Inuyasha."

Amber eyes scan her face, catch her lips, and Sango feels a warmth spread from her core to her cheeks. She knows winter has not been good to him, either.

"Its been a long time, Sango." He turns suddenly to the frost covered sack, and pulls out a heavy skin of what smells like sake. "But, were still here. You, know?" He takes a long drink and passes it to her, " You've got food and warmth tonight. Relax. "

She takes a long gulp, embracing the burn. It isn't like Inuyasha, but then, it is. He is complex, and Sango knows this. She knows he will be gone tomorrow, and she will nurse herself on salt fish and rice boiled in snow melt. She'll fix the thatch on her roof, and reset her traps. She might even catch two golden lights, in the canopy of the trees, against the clearest stars she's ever seen.

 

.

 

She doesn't ask how he's been and neither does he. He sits, crossed legged, arms folded, in the same spot as always. Inuyasha has no home, but Sango thinks hes made one, in the worn in depression by her hearth. 

"This winter was mild. The winds are blowing from the south. Its strange. These mountains keep things interesting ." She says skinning a hare on the table top she built last summer. 

"Keh. Watch, next one will be worst than the first."

His stance is ever Inuyasha, and she rolls her eyes. "You shouldn't say that, you would wish death on me?" She is smiling, and Inuyasha regards her with slanted eyes and a smirk.

"It'd take a lot more than the cold to kill you, Sango." 

"I'll take that as a complement, then." 

 

.

 

It stays like this, they've settled into the seasons and what they bring. In the fall, her harvest is bountiful enough, and he brings her what she can not grow. In the summer, she works with her hands and mends her home and even once made an instrument one of the girls in her village had showed her. Hollowed out wood and string. She even sings, and feels Inuyasha in the trees, never joining, only watching. When winter rolls down the mountains and the leaves have fallen and her traps are set, whether or not they bring meat, Inuyasha comes. He brings sake and rice and salt fish, and pulls her into him. They may be stray dogs, but they are still here.

After the thaw, the valley blooms with purple and ivory and yellow and pink. The lush green and clear water take her back to purple robes and violet eyes. This place, this valley, it makes everything worth it. Every loss. Every hurt. Every victory and not victory.

She knows it would still be this way, had Inuyasha never come back, but she's grateful for his presence anyway.

 

.

 

She slides the cubes of meat into the boiling water, rabbit skins stretched over racks behind her.

Inuyasha is still sitting, ever looking, something strange on his face, something Sango knows all too well. "Sango."

She looks up under the sweep of her bangs, "Inuyahsa?"

His eyes don't leave her. He is stiff, but he says nothing. A moment passes between them, and Sango looks down at the stew, "Smells good, doesn't it?" She offers a reprieve.

Inuyasha takes it. They eat, and he inhales the food, and Sango can almost hear Kagome scolding him, can almost see Miroku shaking his head and smiling in his way. It isn't painful, infact, she craves it. Sunlight spills in through the door way; She still doesn't ask him to stay. 

We're okay, she thinks, we're okay.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inuyasha; rage and memory.

The drawn breaks like an open wound over the high mountain trees.

Inuyasha is perched there. Spring has settled over the days, but the nights are still blistering cold, and had it been the night of the new moon, he'd be long dead by now. Though his hanyou blood warms him, he welcomes the daylight. Last night he checked each of Sango's traps, all but one empty. Though the woman had a knack for slaying youkai, she was no seasoned trapper. It had not been an hour before he had four hares in hand, leaving the frozen squirrel for her to find on her own.

Many years had passed since his rushing blood gut him and all those around him clean. Had it not been for the taiyija, he would have perished with the rest of them. His body would have gone on to be sure, but there would have been nothing left of his heart. It took the worst parts of him to take out Naraku. The carnage had been like something out of a nightmare, nightmares from his childhood. Sango dipped and dogged her way into the grove where his tessusaiga lay wasted. He doesn't remember that night, just the way Kagome's body looked, angled awkwardly against the cliffside, and seeing Sango dissapear into the distance, set after some rogue youkai of Naraku's who stole his blade in the chaos. There is nothing after that.

 

.

 

He woke to a bloody throne behind him, and Sango beneath him. He was clawing madly at her clothes when he came from his rushing daze. Red marks peppered her neck and the tops of her breast. He was covered in blood, with no knowledge of who it belonged to.

"Inuyasha!" Sango said with a fury, she did not cow to him, instead thrust Tessusaiga in his bloodied hands, " You are Inuyasha! "

 

Everything after that was a wash of rage and memory. Dead, all dead. Save him and the taiyija.

He remembers the way she did not move for hours when she stood tall against the carnage Inuyasha had wrought. A bloody throne, indeed. The corpses of youkai and humans alike piled high, each indistinguishable from the other. Monster or human, it made no matter. They were all bone and blood and sinew in the end.

When Sango finally turned to look at him, there was nothing on her face that might give away what she was feeling, thinking. Only a hard set stare and two words, "The jewel."

They set on together, wordless, to finish what they had started. With no Kagome to pinpoint the shikon jewel, they were left to dig, and they did.

It was a vile mess and the sun had risen to bake and boil the corpses before they finally found the jewel. The smell stayed with them long after.

It was no surprise to either of them, that they wished it away. So much death would never be lain on another's shoulders again.

Sango knew their friend's deaths had been at the points of his claws. She never brought it up. She never said good bye, either.

And he was alone again. As if there had been no Kikyou, no well, no girl from the furture, no human hearts to hold him.

_But there had been._

 

.

 

The first year he wanders on, hollowed and gaunt from lack of purpose. There is no more revenge to keep him satiated. He has no one but himself to blame- _no_ , he does not think of that. He keeps going, stays clear of villages, keeps clear his mind. Nothing will touch him again. No more human hearts, no more human women to curse. He decides he will go north. There are less people in the harsher climates, less chances for his heart to settle into the easy beat of humanity.

He is resolute in this. It stays this way through the turning seasons, until he begins to catch some familiar scent on the southwind. He climbs high, over the crest of a snow covered mountain, trees reaching and swaying in the thin air. He looks on the valley below to see and ice lake and muddied paths carved in the snow. They all lead back to a hut built from cedar pillars and mud. A thick layer of thatch on the roof was covered with a fresh layer of snow, though he spied a depression on the western end. _That will fall through soon._

When he sees her, he feels bile turn in his stomach. She trekking through the mud, unrecognizable in her thick furs. He can smell her all the same. Earthy, and distinctly feminine; the same note of sweetness that lingered in his nose, so many nights by the fire, in a different life. One where a girl's perfumes and lotions had been thick and sticky in his nose, so he perched him self high above his pack. There he would smell another girl, not yet pack, but learning. She was soil and camp fire and her sweat had a sweetness he could never name.

He doesn't go to her. He doubts he is welcome, though that never mattered to him anyway.

He watches instead.

Why she made her home here, so high in these desolate mountains, he could not understand. She is a human woman, and still young with a fair face and hips and breasts for bearing healthy children. A husband would be easy for her, she would have many suitors.

Yet here she is bundled in furs, carving muddied paths, failing at ice fishing and likely starving.

Inuyasha has known Sango long and well, so when he sees her climb her roof in the blinding wind and cold to patch her roof, he does not insult her by making down the mountain to repair her roof, and dig out a cellar, instead he watches. He feels the parts of him, long dormant, stir.

He keeps his distance.

 

.

 

Sometimes Inuyasha can't help himself. He's gone so long without purpose, he cant help but plant squirrels and mice and rabbits in her meager traps. Guilt tells him it's wrong, that Sango would hate him for treating her as if she was incapable. They shared that same streak of hellfire and pride; since their first meeting, he spotted it, and immediately felt kinship. They sparred with words and arms, and saved eachother's lives more times than he could count.

She is no girl now. She is a warrior, and she is herself, so he feels guilty for planting game. But the chance of her starving and frozen, the last piece of him, perishing in the snow; the thought is too much to bear so he tells his guilt to fuck off and plants them anyway.

.

Its his second winter watching her. There's a hole in her god damn roof again, and she's setting out to check her traps. He knows they are empty, he didn't bother filling them this time. He went and came from Kaede's village, a large hide sack filled with a pound of salt fish, wrapped in parchment, and enough rice to keep a woman through the winter. When no one was looking, he sacked a rather large skin of sake from a man who lie face down in his hut.

With that he set north.

Knowing where to look he wasted no time in returning to her keep. He thought long and hard about what he would say. He knew it had been the passing of several moons and seasons since the last time she spoke to him. 'The Jewel', she had said. Eyes hard, they are still hard now. Set on the work before her, never bending in the cold winds. He would have thought her walking to her death had he bothered to ask where she was making for. Yet, here she is.

She was gone, checking and resetting empty traps when he stood before her home. His guts twisted. He did not know if he was welcome. He had no idea how she would react upon seeing him, after all, she left without a word

But the depression in her roof had fallen through and the wet and snow came with it, her fire was dying, and he was in no mood to cater to her pride. Not now, when the cold winds were swallowing the world, and darkness meant death. He buried what remained of his hesitation and set inside to stoke the flames of her dying fire, _Fool_ He knows Sango well enough to know she does not wish to die, but he also knows she is smarter than this.

When she walks through the door, it's like it hasn't been years. It's like everything is as it once was, it's so familiar, the words tumble out like nothing has changed. "Fool. You're fire almost went out. What would you have done then?" His blood is rising and it's not her place to die out here, "Everything is damp! You've got another damn hole in your roof."

The way she looks at him, that's familiar, too. The same way she looked at him when they were at eachothers throat, the same way she looked at him when she was ready to take her life and Kohaku's, and he reminded her of who she was and never fucking give up.

It's shock, and _how could you._

"What... are... you doing here?"

It's Sango, not some ghost. He thinks this is the first time he sees this for what it is.

He throws his pride to the wind and stands from the fire to wrap his arms around her. She stiffens beneath her furs and he can feel every unspoken apology and asking spill into him. He tightens his grip, "You've done pretty well for a human, Sango. I'm... suprised. Even though some of your ideas have been pretty stupid. You should have just stayed with Kaede." The words came out, but he knew better. She not built for such a life.

He can still smell her hostility, but she hugs him back and says she's missed him, and something inside Inuyasha breaks.

Just as soon as the feeling hits, she is gone to lay beside the fire he built back up for her.

She tells him ice fishing has been difficult, and has the look of a human who has been inside their own mind for too long. "And here you are." She sighs out. Looking at him like he isnt even there. He knows he must seem a ghost. She did for so long.

"Why did you choose this place, Sango?" He needs to know.

"Solitude, I suppose." Her voice is scratchy, like she hasnt spoken in far too long. Her eyes slant toward him under the shadow of her hair, "These mountains, they heal me. There is forgiveness here."

He goes cold in an instant. The stain of black and bloody corpses, the smell of rot in the hot sun, bile rises in his throat, but he doesnt move. There is no malice in her voice. He lets go, willing the past where it belongs.

"Why do you only come now, after so long?" Her rage dissolves into something else he wishes he did not recognize.

He replies with the only thing that comes to mind, a truth that bonds them, the only company he's found solace in is the feel of his comrades in the trees and air. It's been so long. "Solitude, I suppose."

"Why come now?" She asks again, not letting him dodge the real question.

He eyes her puffy figure, her fair face beneath her fur hood, and feels a longing he's not felt in a life time. His human blood still makes him a man. A man has needs, but these baser things, he wills away, like the past that he won't let hold him. Watching her for so long, forge on in the cold, alone, stirred something within him. He felt it long ago when he watched her tear through her sorrow to gut every thing that stood in her path. He chalked it up to battle lust and nothing more. Her strength, he admired always, her hope inspired him. _And she was beautiful_ But respect and pride kept his baser insincts still. Now, though, there was nothing but the two of them. Propriety died with the rest of them.

"I've spent a long time on my own, Sango. Our journey was nothing more than a beat. I was meant to be alone," He regards her with something like respect and something primal. "I think you were meant to be alone, too."

The silence between them is easy, when she speaks this time it is low and resigned, "We are stray dogs, Inuyasha."

The words ring true, and of a different nature than the distant life time ago, when he was a pup. "Stray dogs," an epithet lost to the victories that broke him, " Keh. Maybe so. "

"It is true." She sits up. He can see her bones are stiff, the way she moves. She begins to peel off her furs and he doesn't look away. Layer by layer, she removes them until her shoulders are glowing in the fire light and her breasts are tightly bound by rabbit skin she had sewn together. The rise and fall catch his eye and he does not look away and she does not cover herself and he knows she has changed too.

"There is nothing wrong with it, Inuyasha." Her eyes catch his own, trained on her body, and he sees her see him. Her body is a neutral space, neither responding nor cowering. He sees her skip over the thought, and envies her, "I like it out here."

"You've always been one tough bitch." He responds, baser self bleeding through. They are not who they used to be. The driving snow, and bone cold loneliness made sure of that.

He shakes it off. He is still himself, and he hopes this still means something. 

"I brought some things." Inuyasha turns to pull the gifts out of his sack, and when he does, he sees her hunger, but she is still.

He scowls, "Pfft. What, no thank you? I guess you want me to go get snow to melt too, princess. " Maybe it can be something like it used to be.

"You don't need to do this. I am fine on my own."

It almost makes him laugh, instead he turns to face her, crouched down so that his nose is nearly touching hers.

"Listen Sango, its fucking cold out there, even for me. So I figured I might bring you some things. For some reason you chose this place, your traps are bare, and I can smell the blood from here. So can every other youkai within a hundred miles. I know you're strong. Just take it."

Her eyes are wide, and her lips are parted, "Thank you, Inuyasha." Her hand touches his.

He feels himself stiffen, and decides thats enough for now. He did not come here to make an animal of himself; the cold can take his sense, but his human heart will always keep him.

"It's been a long time, Sango." He says hoping she understands. He knows she is versed in the mating habits of youkai and prays she does not hold these things against him. It is not her, he thinks, prays. It has just been a long time, and it is only the two of them now. He turns to pull a skin of sake out of the bag, knowing all tension will dissolve soon, he settles in to that thought.

"But, we're still here. You know?" He takes a long drink and passes it to her, " You've got food and warmth tonight. Relax. "

She drinks from the skin like a dying man, and he tries to ignore the way the sake spills down her chin, down her throat and into the crevice that hides her human heart.

Again, the silence is easy. They look into the fire, and warm their insides with sake and eachother's presence. He pulls her into him, wrapping himself tightly around her. She falls asleep, and smells like soil and burning cedar and her sweat smells sweet.

He feels something dangerous, like home, so he leaves when the dawn breaks through the valley.

He will be back. He will always be back.

.

Hares in hands, he leaps to the ground, and Sango is there, peeling back the thick youkai skin Inuyasha had brought her this past winter solstice. She regard the hares cooly, and then him, "Come in."

He sits in the same spot as always, by the hearth she made with her own hands and prepares the meat in that easy way she seems to do everything. They talk little about winter, and smile at eachother, and it isnt painful.

It isn't painful, and to look upon her makes his skin warm, and he feels like he has a home again, and it terrifies him.

"Sango." He starts, wanting to say eveything, yet his words are lost to him, as they always have been. It seems they always will be.

"Inuyasha." Sango responds, looking up at him from the sweep of her bangs. He sees recognition, and feels lost again. 

Her eyes shift from him to the stew and back, "Smells, good doesn't it?"

Inuyasha is grateful for her. He eats, and she kind of smiles at him in between meager bites. Just in an instant he sees what she sees and it feels like home.

She doesn't ask him to stay.

but just for an instant, between sloppy gulps of warm stew, he hopes one day she will.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't decide if this should stay a oneshot or not. There is more to it, I believe.


End file.
